Santa Monica Studio's 2018 God of War was a smash hit, winning top accolades like Game of the Year from The Game Awards and the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) awards. It's very well regarded for both its story and action-oriented gameplay, with a stand-out example of the latter coming from Kratos and his son having to kill the cursed and highly dangerous Valkyrie warriors.
Dutch cosplayer Marye Le Fay has brought these iconic God of War foes to life through a take on the Valkyrie Hildr with articulated wings that expand as if to entice unsuspecting people to their demise. In a post made to the r/GodofWar subreddit on January 27, about a week before a video of the wings in action was captured at a photoshoot organized by Duh-Events B.V., Fay said the wings took her six weeks.
Fay posted the video of her Valkyrie's unfurling wings to Twitter just a few hours ago and has already caught the attention of Cory Barlog, the director of God of War (2018). Barlog has joked about a God of War 2 on Twitter recently, and today heaped plenty of praise on the cosplay alongside Sucker Punch Productions' Communications Manager Andrew Goldfarb.
In the Reddit post from late January, Fay points to Instagram for fans to view her cosplay-building progress. The first post related to Hildr was a blank white mask uploaded in November 2019, and there are plenty more characters to peruse including Paine from Final Fantasy X-2 (recently ported to the Nintendo Switch), Widowmaker from Overwatch, and Gunnr; another God of War Valkyrie.
Fay also has a YouTube channel, with the most recent video being a recording of her building the Hildr mask:
Barlog has expressed interest in turning God of War into a Netflix series like The Witcher, and seeing what Fay has pulled off suggests there would be a lot of merit to the idea. Hers certainly is not the only Valkyrie cosplay that has circulated conventions and the Internet since 2018, but her attention to detail and the spectacle of her wingspan makes for a great example of the series' live-action possibilities.
The actual photos from Fay's Hildr photoshoot will be available to the public "soon" according to her Tweet, and it's easy to imagine they will be awesome like she suggests. They'll likely continue to be inspiring to the original developers at Santa Monica Studios as well, even if God of War 2 has other corners of Norse mythology left to explore.
God of War is available now for PS4.